TWiki is an enterprise collaboration platform and application platform. TWiki has been downloaded over half a million times and is used by many leading Fortune 500 businesses and government agencies as an intranet, extranet or a public internet website.

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TWiki Release 5.1 is a minor release that brings many usability enhancements (such as point and click user data management, more visual user profile pages with picture selector, and a backup feature that helps upgrade TWiki sites) and strengthens TWiki as an application platform (such as a new macro language with parameterized variables).

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TWiki-5.1.0 released on 2011-08-20 is a major release that brings many usability enhancements (such as point and click user data management, more visual user profile pages with picture selector, and a backup feature that helps upgrade TWiki sites) and strengthens TWiki as an application platform (such as a new macro language with parameterized variables).

TWiki-5.1.1 released on 2012-01-14 is a patch release that adds some minor new features and fixes a number of bugs.

Introduction

TWiki is an enterprise collaboration platform and application platform. TWiki has been downloaded over half a million times and is used by many leading Fortune 500 businesses and government agencies as an intranet, extranet or a public internet website.

TWiki Release 5.1 is a minor release that brings many usability enhancements (such as point and click user data management, more visual user profile pages with picture selector, and a backup feature that helps upgrade TWiki sites) and strengthens TWiki as an application platform (such as a new macro language with parameterized variables).

New Features Highlights

Usability Enhancements

API and GUI for point and click user data management

Support disabled users in password manager

More visual user profile pages with in-place editing of form fields and picture selector

In-place editing of TWiki group settings using PreferencesPlugin

Point and click bookmarks for better usability

Improved statistics showing overall site usage over time, such as total number of webs, topics, users, etc

Deprecation Notices

From TWiki 5.0 on, the ClassicSkin is deprecated and will be removed in a future release.

From TWiki 4.2 on, the %MAINWEB% and %TWIKIWEB% variables have been deprecated. For compatibility reasons they are unlikely to ever be removed completely, but you should use the %USERSWEB% and %SYSTEMWEB% variables instead.

From TWiki 4.2 on, functions TWiki::Func::getOopsUrl and TWiki::Func::permissionsSet have been declared deprecated. There is no plan to remove them yet.

From TWiki 4.0 on, the syntax "* Set DENYTOPICVIEW = " (nothing) in a topic means deny noone. Even if ALLOWTOPICVIEW is set to people or group setting DENYTOPICCHANGE to nothing means allow anyone. You have to remove the DENYTOPICVIEW or comment it out to have the ALLOWTOPICVIEW working. The reason for this behavior is that it enables limiting access to an entire web by setting a blank DENYTOPICVIEW setting. Same rule applies for DENYTOPICCHANGE and DENYTOPICRENAME. The rule does not apply for access rights defined for webs. Ie. "*Set DENYWEBCHANGE = " does not allow anyone to edit topics in the web. There has been strong oppinions against the syntax "* Set DENYTOPICXXXX = " meaning giving all access. So please be warned that we will change the syntax to a more transparent and logical syntax in future but we will ensure that it is still possible to secure a web and open up individual topics in future also.

Notes for TWiki Administrators and Wiki Champions

Improved User Data Management API and GUI

TWiki-5.1 introduces a new API and GUI to manage user data. It enhances the user mapping and password managers TWiki already has with point and click user management.

Password managers can declare their own data (fields with name, value, type, note) so that TWiki's user manager can show queries and forms to display and manipulate user data in a transparent way. It is a data driven design that can be extended easily.

At this time, TWiki::Users::HtPasswdUser, TWiki::Users::TWikiUserMapping and TWiki::Users::BaseUserMapping support the new user data management API. Other user mapping and password managers will follow. The implementation details are described at TWiki:Codev.UserDataManagementApiAndGUI - developers are encouraged to use the new API.

For each month, the following items are recorded using system data and TWiki log data across all webs: Total number of webs, number of webs viewed, number of webs updated, total number of topics, number of topics viewed, number of topics updated, number of attachments, number of topic views, number of topic updates, number of files uploads, data size, pub size, disk use, number of users, number of groups, number of plugins installed compared to number of plugins available, and 10 top contributors.

The statistics script contacts twiki.org to query the number of plugins available for the currently installed TWiki version via an http GET. It also sends anonymized site usage statistics to twiki.org via query string. Example http request:
/cgi-bin/pluginstats?statSite=978B8B8FC5D0D0888888D18B97909A9186D1908D98;statDate=2011-04; statWebs=20;statWebsViewed=15;statWebsUpdated=6;statTopics=1501;statTopicsViewed=724; statTopicsUpdated=137;statAttachments=724;statViews=578;statSaves=223;statUploads=19; statDataSize=46.4;statPubSize=238.4;statDiskUse=93%25;statUsers=31;statGroups=7;statPlugins=22; statVersion=TWiki-5.1.0;Example response:
plugins: 196The statistics script will not contact twiki.org if a {Stats}{DontContactTWikiOrg} configure setting is set.

Automatically Create Topics on Page View

A new feature has been introduced to automatically create a non-existing topic on page view. With this it is possible to link to a topic, and in case it does not exist, have the topic created based on a specific template when clicking on the link.

Use-case example: The new user bookmarks feature has a pulldown menu link to bookmark the current page. That link points to the <wikiname>Bookmarks page, which has a form pre-filled with the page and name of the to-be-bookmarked page. In case the user bookmarks page does not exist it is created first before showing the topic with the pre-filled form.

New Page Bookmarks Feature

A new bookmark feature has been introduced that replaces the personal left-bar links. Bookmarking a page is now a simple point and click operation: In the Account pulldown menu, select "Bookmark this page...". Existing bookmarks can be managed with an edit table in Main.<wikiname>Bookmarks topic, accessible via the "----- Bookmarks -----" pulldown menu of the Account pulldown.

The personal left-bar topics such as JohnSmithLeftBar are no longer used. Ask users to select the "----- Bookmarks -----" pulldown menu of the Account pulldown to initially create the bookmarks topic, then to either bookmark pages, or to manually copy & paste old left-bar links to the bookmarks topic.

User Profile Pages Tailored for Workplace

Previous user profile pages had a bare bone look and the form fields were more tailored for public TWiki sites. TWiki-5.1 brings a more visual/modern page layout with profile picture selector, as well as default form fields tailored for the workplace.